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Mac Forum / Applications / PowerPoint / April 2005True that PP uses absolute paths to locate video clip resources?????
After suffering horribly with a presentation that refused to run any of the video clips I had inserted, I contacted MS tech support. They were unable to help me, but did tell me that ³it should work.² No one could reproduce the problems, and none of the standard solution approaches did any good. Same problems with wmv and avi formats. Since things were being created on the Mac and ported over, that was the main suspect. Running things through Windows Movie Maker and saving to a different format worked a few times, but not for most of the files. That seemed to discount the possibility that there was some kind of platform transfer issue at play. Symptom: insert clip from file, set autoplay, clip appears beautifully and snaps into place, go to slide show to test clip, get a blank slide. Go back to slide view. Double click clip. Get blank slide. Double click clip again. Returns to perfect shot of first frame. Tried inserting as objects, which seemed to solve the problem even as it made things clumsier. Out of about 12 clips (had planned more like 30 but couldn¹t do that because it was taking about an hour per clip) 8 ran as inserted video and 4 ran as inserted (click-me-to-run) objects. Transferred to CDs. Everything seemed fine. During presentation, inserted objects did not run but stopped the slide show while I had to find the referenced file and double click it. Today I heard from MS support that the problem was probably that I had built the presentation at too low a level in my drive. Apparently PP uses absolute paths to locate the video clips. Even if the clips are in the same directory, PP looks for them from root level of drive. Fine, except that apparently PP cannot parse a path name with more than 128 characters. That includes the name of all enclosing volumes and folders plus the actual file name. My presentation was in its own folder within a reporting folder within a project folder within an active projects folder within a projects folder within a files folder within a documents folder with my user directory. Also, the file names described the clip content in short form (luckily for when I had to locate them on the fly during the presentation). If true, it¹s infuriating and should not be true. On the other side, it means my problem is completely solved. But if it¹s not true, it means I need to look farther and fast. I need to generate a completely polished CD with no screw-ups to send out on Monday. Does this explanation make sense? If so, shouldn¹t Office be set up to recognize relative paths rather than absolute? If not, can you suggest something else. By the way, bringing the directory to the desktop does seem to solve the problems. Thanks Best, - Bill Panther 10.3.6 Office 2004 Windows XP Pro SP2 Office 2003 On 4/22/05 4:31 PM, in article BE8ED762.24B50%bill@nospam.net, "Bill Weylock" <bill@nospam.net> wrote: > If not, can you suggest something else. > > By the way, bringing the directory to the desktop does seem to solve the > problems. Why suggest something else when you found the solution, which just happens to confirm exactly what you were told? Too bad there's a bug, but given that you know what it is and it's awfully simple to accommodate it, what's your problem? You don't have to use the desktop, Just move the presentation's folder to the top level within ~/Documents and you'll be fine. (Who needs a "files" folder? What else is there but files?) You could even make a "presentations" folder within ~/Documents, and put it - and all your other presentations - there. Then make an alias to it in the deeper folder and satisfy your neatness urges that way. You can still find it (the alias) where you'd expect.  SignaturePaul Berkowitz MVP MacOffice Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html> AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/> Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be ignored. PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using - **2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise. Paul - My posting was way too long and rambling, and in my sleep-deprived anxiety I neglected to be clear that the problem was under Windows XP. I¹ll post this over there because I still need confirmation. Sorry for the bother to anyone on the Mac side. Maybe by the time you finished reading all that you flipped when it seemed I had solved the problem anyway. I can understand that. The Files folder is a dumb name. It¹s carried over from the old OS, and I should probably rename it someday. It¹s shorthand for an entire company¹s filing system, which is shared on the network and synchronized with laptops. Thanks for the suggestions, but I understand file structures very well and appreciate the magnificent potential of aliases. As for your first question, I wanted confirmation of something that sounds unreasonable or inadequately documented. This problem caused me a lot of pain and trouble, and I was trying to be very sure this was likely to be a full and complete solution since I have a lot more short deadline work. I need to be sure nothing like that will happen again, and the PP groups are filled with anomalies concerning PP and media files. I also wanted to be sure that other people would know about it in case anyone else might suffer the way I did. Tech support took many hours and false suggestions to come up with this analysis. They put me through a lot of hoops while all the time mumbling ³this shouldn¹t be happening.² On 4/22/05 10:22 PM, in article BE8F29B2.93F5D%berkowit@spoof_silcom.com, > On 4/22/05 4:31 PM, in article BE8ED762.24B50%bill@nospam.net, "Bill Weylock" > <bill@nospam.net> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > satisfy your neatness urges that way. You can still find it (the alias) where > you'd expect. Panther 10.3.6 Office 2004 Windows XP Pro SP2 Office 2003 > My posting was way too long and rambling, and in my sleep-deprived anxiety I > neglected to be clear that the problem was under Windows XP. I wondered if that wasn't the case. OK. First, it's nothing to do with Windows XP per se. It's a combination of PPT and the Windows MCI media player (mplay32.exe, not Windows Media Player) that's at fault. The Media Player, not PPT, plays movies and sounds, and it has the 128-character path limitation. I'm unsure how this'd work when creating on Mac and moving to Windows as it seems you might be doing, but on Windows, if you put the media files in the same folder as the PPT and only then insert them into the presentation, you get a relative link; or rather then link is to the media filename only, no drive or path reference. I do think it works the same on Mac versions of PPT. See this for more info: Sounds/Movies don't play, images disappear or links break when I move or email a presentation http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00155.htm Also, have a look at http://fixlinks.pptools.com The site describes our commercial FixLinks addin for Windows PPT, but the free demo includes a link reporting tool that may help you sort out what's going on. There's some info there about how you can fix links w/o having to purchase the addin too. This is not a sales call. In fact, you can't even run the addin on the Mac. <g> Ill post this > over there because I still need confirmation. Sorry for the bother to anyone > on the Mac side. Maybe by the time you finished reading all that you flipped [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] > Windows XP Pro SP2 > Office 2003 ================================================ Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com PPTools: www.pptools.com ================================================ Thanks! We are talking about the same thing, definitely. Nevertheless, your statement ³on Windows, if you put the media files in the same folder as the PPT and only then insert them into the presentation, you get a relative link; or rather then link is to the media filename only, no drive or path reference² seems not to be correct. If it were, I would have had no problems. That¹s what is driving me crazy. According to many people, what happened to me is just not possible. But oh it sure did happen. Here¹s the way it really went down, however. See if this still makes sense. (and I will absolutely be reading the links you just gave me). I brought the PPT over from the Mac before I started inserting (or even making) any wmv clips. I made the wmv¹s using iMovie and an export utility called WMV-9 that I got from Popwire.com. It came highly recommended. I was working with a 78GB DV file, generating clips as true .dv files onto the Mac. I then opened them in QTpro and exported them as .wmv files, saving them directly into the presentation folder on the PC side. I had the ppt and all media files at the same level of one folder on the PC side. (Wasn¹t the fault of the converter because I had the same results with .avi files. Also, I tried using a ppt my client had sent me that had never seen a Mac. Same bad results.) I absolutely expected that what you say would be true: if files are in the same directory as the presentation before being inserted into the presentation, they should require ³name-only² (relative) links. That is not what MS support ended up telling me. By the way, we successfully opened and played every one of the problem inserts using both Media Player and the mplay32.exe program (which I ran with a line command). Would love to know what you make of all this?? Very best, - Bill On 4/23/05 1:34 PM, in article VA.0000158e.d39c35aa@localhost.com, "Steve Rindsberg" <abuse@localhost.com> wrote: >> > My posting was way too long and rambling, and in my sleep-deprived anxiety I >> > neglected to be clear that the problem was under Windows XP. > [quoted text clipped - 87 lines] > PPTools: www.pptools.com > ================================================ Panther 10.3.6 Office 2004 Windows XP Pro SP2 Office 2003 > Thanks! We are talking about the same thing, definitely. Be afraid. ;-) OK. Let's set what MS Support says aside for the moment. Some of those folks are topnotch, but let's base this on observed fact, not what they say you should observe. Since you're assembling this all on the PC, do get a copy of the FixLinks demo and run a links report on the PPT. Paste the results in here and we'll see what's next. http://fixlinks.pptools.com is the url again. > Nevertheless, your statement on Windows, if you put the media files in the > [quoted text clipped - 76 lines] > a presentation href="http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00155.htm"http://www.rdpslides..com/pptfaq /FAQ00155.htm > Also, have a look at > href="http://fixlinks.pptools.com"http://fixlinks.pptools.com [quoted text clipped - 78 lines] > Windows XP Pro SP2 > Office 2003 ================================================ Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com PPTools: www.pptools.com ================================================ Steve - I¹ll run the program, but my agenda is not to do a quick fix. I¹ve done that. When I bring the folder up in the hierarchy, the problems go away. That¹s observed. Finally, the problems are NOT when I port to CD but occur right on the hard drive, right in the directory in which the ppt file and all of the media files were created and reside. I don¹t think you read my entire post. I reported all of the procedures I followed in setting up and testing the links. None of the mistakes you say result in these problems were made. None. I¹m going to invest the time to run your program, and I will be very grateful if it proves helpful. I would much appreciate, though, some comment on what I actually did, as opposed to what you think I must have done. I have zero problem paying for anything. I¹ve already bought several utilities for this project, and I¹ll be thrilled to buy anything that will help. Not only that, I¹ll post testimonials and event succinct ones. But please don¹t dismiss everything I wrote. I really need to understand how this happened so I can make sure it never happens again. Thanks. Best, - Bill On 4/25/05 8:35 AM, in article VA.0000159c.04c6204a@localhost.com, "Steve Rindsberg" <abuse@localhost.com> wrote: >> > Thanks! We are talking about the same thing, definitely. > [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] >> > (Wasnt the fault of the converter because I had the same results with .avi >> > files. Also, I tried using a ppt my client had sent me that had never seen a >> > Mac. Same bad results.) >> > [quoted text clipped - 79 lines] >> > laptops. >>> > > Thanks for the suggestions, but I understand file structures very well and >>> > > appreciate the magnificent potential of aliases. >>> > > >>> > > As for your first question, I wanted confirmation of something that >> > sounds >>> > > unreasonable or inadequately documented. This problem caused me a lot of >>> > > pain and trouble, and I was trying to be very sure this was likely to be a >>> > > full and complete solution since I have a lot more short deadline work.. I >>> > > need to be sure nothing like that will happen again, and the PP groups are >>> > > filled with anomalies concerning PP and media files. >>> > > >>> > > I also wanted to be sure that other people would know about it in case >>> > > anyone else might suffer the way I did. Tech support took many hours and >>> > > false suggestions to come up with this analysis. They put me through a lot >>> > > of hoops while all the time mumbling this shouldnt be happening. >>> > > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >>> > > problem? You don't have to use the desktop, Just move the presentation's >>> > > folder to the top level within ~/Documents and you'll be fine. (Who >>> needs >> > a >>> > > "files" folder? What else is there but files?) You could even make a >>> > > "presentations" folder within ~/Documents, and put it - and all your >>> other >>> > > presentations - there. Then make an alias to it in the deeper folder and >>> > > satisfy your neatness urges that way. You can still find it (the alias) [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > PPTools: www.pptools.com > ================================================ Panther 10.3.6 Office 2004 Windows XP Pro SP2 Office 2003 Frankly, reading this again, I am a little disturbed by the apparent tone of it. I wrote this way too fast and didn¹t intend to be this abrasive. I¹ve been very grateful for the attention and still am. Sorry this seems to be snapping at you. If I could delete it, I would. Best, - Bill On 4/25/05 9:28 AM, in article BE9268D3.24D87%bill@nospam.net, "Bill Weylock" <bill@nospam.net> wrote: > Steve - > [quoted text clipped - 170 lines] >>> > laptops. >>>> > > Thanks for the suggestions, but I understand file structures very well and >>>> > > appreciate the magnificent potential of aliases. >>>> > > >>>> > > As for your first question, I wanted confirmation of something that >>> > sounds >>>> > > unreasonable or inadequately documented. This problem caused me a lot of >>>> > > pain and trouble, and I was trying to be very sure this was likely to >>>> be a >>>> > > full and complete solution since I have a lot more short deadline >>>> work.. I >>>> > > need to be sure nothing like that will happen again, and the PP groups are >>>> > > filled with anomalies concerning PP and media files. >>>> > > >>>> > > I also wanted to be sure that other people would know about it in case >>>> > > anyone else might suffer the way I did. Tech support took many hours and >>>> > > false suggestions to come up with this analysis. They put me through a lot >>>> > > of hoops while all the time mumbling this shouldnt be happening. >>>> > > [quoted text clipped - 55 lines] > Windows XP Pro SP2 > Office 2003 Panther 10.3.6 Office 2004 Windows XP Pro SP2 Office 2003 > Frankly, reading this again, I am a little disturbed by the apparent tone of > it. > > I wrote this way too fast and didnt intend to be this abrasive. Ive been > very grateful for the attention and still am. Sorry this seems to be > snapping at you. If I could delete it, I would. Not to worry, Bill. I could tell it was the frustration talking. Been there. Snapped at that. ;-) Bill, I think you misunderstood Steve. First of all, the FixLinks demo (which Steve suggested) is free. Second, your problem seems to be a strange one. No one here (or apparently at Microsoft) has been able to figure it out strictly from your description. That is why Steve suggested getting the report from the FixLinks demo. That report might be able to help you and Steve analyze what has gone wrong. In my experience 99.9% of problems reported in these newsgroups are pretty standard and can be fixed with standard solutions (restart your computer, put all the files in the same folder, etc.), and many of these answers can be found in the PPT FAQ (which is run by Steve). When standard answers fail, more digging needs to be done, and sometimes, you are lucky enough to have one of the expert volunteers (like Steve) help you dig or point you to a better shovel (such as the free FixLinks demo). --David SignatureDavid M. Marcovitz Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology Loyola College in Maryland Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_ http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/ > Steve - > [quoted text clipped - 47 lines] >> run a links report on the PPT. Paste the results in here and we'll >> see what's next. http://fixlinks.pptools.com is the url again. Thanks. I already reacted badly to my own post. :) I¹ve now installed the demo, but I botched it since I neglected to reduce macro security level first. Now I¹m waiting for uninstall instructions so I can do it right. Best, - Bill On 4/25/05 9:53 AM, in article Xns96438321F8540marcoNOSPAMloyolaedu@207.46.248.16, "David M. Marcovitz" <marcoNOSPAM@loyola.edu> wrote: > Bill, > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > --David Panther 10.3.6 Office 2004 Windows XP Pro SP2 Office 2003 > Ill run the program, but my agenda is not to do a quick fix. Ive done > that. When I bring the folder up in the hierarchy, the problems go away. > Thats observed. That may be the key to the mystery. PowerPoint doesn't play media files, it hands them off to something called the MCI Media Player (not the same thing as Windows Media Player btw). The MCI Media Player goes crosseyed when it has to handle files with a total path length of over 128 characters or so. Bringing the folder up the hierarchy would shorten the path effectively. And I've a suspicion that even though the link to the file is pathless, PPT still has to prepend the full path to the file's current location when it hands it off to the MCI Media Player for playback. So even pathless links can break if the presentation (PPT) file and linked sounds/movies are too deeply buried. I may indeed have misunderstood/misread something you posted but trust me, I'm not dismissing anything you've said. > Finally, the problems are NOT when I port to CD but occur right on the hard > drive, right in the directory in which the ppt file and all of the media [quoted text clipped - 152 lines] > > a presentation href="href="http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00155.htm"http://www.rdpslides.com/ pptfaq/FAQ00155.htm"href="http://www.rdpslides..com/pptfaq"http://www.rdpslides..c om/pptfaq > /FAQ00155.htm > > > > Also, have a look at href="href="http://fixlinks.pptools.com"http://fixlinks.pptools.com"href="http://f ixlinks.pptools.com"http://fixlinks.pptools.com > > The site describes our commercial FixLinks addin for Windows PPT, but the > > free [quoted text clipped - 105 lines] > Windows XP Pro SP2 > Office 2003 ================================================ Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com PPTools: www.pptools.com ================================================ Steve - What you just said is about what the MS guy told me, except he didn¹t make the distinction between the player and PPT. We did actually run the mplay32.exe app and found that it would play all of the media files. It just wouldn¹t play from within the darned presentation. I guess when you use the file selector it does the work that tracing the path would do if the player were trying to find the file on its own. Anyway, now that you¹ve validated what they said and find it makes sense, I¹m going to go with that analysis and rebuild everything where it is, also adding in clips I had to abandon because of the problems. Thanks a lot! This has been very frustrating and confusing. What I was really looking for was validation to be sure I could stop worrying or a challenge so I would know I needed to keep worrying and get to the real culprit. Now I¹m not worried. Sure is a dumb thing for MS to allow and not to document, though. I would bet this would never happen on the Mac side.... I¹ve learned to use Windows fairly well, and it does some things better and faster. By and large, though, I hate it. :) Very best, - Bill On 4/25/05 10:56 AM, in article VA.000015a8.0546de9e@localhost.com, "Steve Rindsberg" <abuse@localhost.com> wrote: >> > Ill run the program, but my agenda is not to do a quick fix. Ive done >> > that. When I bring the folder up in the hierarchy, the problems go away. [quoted text clipped - 42 lines] >> > >> > But please dont dismiss everything I wrote. I really need to understand >> how >> > this happened so I can make sure it never happens again. >> > [quoted text clipped - 54 lines] >> > I got >>> > > from Popwire.com. It came highly recommended. I was working with a 78GB DV >>> > > file, generating clips as true .dv files onto the Mac. I then opened >>> them >> > in >>> > > QTpro and exported them as .wmv files, saving them directly into the [quoted text clipped - 85 lines] > ixlinks.pptools.com"http://fixlinks.pptools.com >>> > > The site describes our commercial FixLinks addin for Windows PPT, but the >>> > > free >>> > > demo includes a link reporting tool that may help you sort out [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >>> > > flipped >>>> > > > when it seemed I had solved the problem anyway. I can understand that. >>>> > > > The Files folder is a dumb name. Its carried over from the old >> > OS, [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >>> > > laptops. >>>> > > > Thanks for the suggestions, but I understand file structures very well >> > and >>>> > > > appreciate the magnificent potential of aliases. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >>> > > sounds >>>> > > > unreasonable or inadequately documented. This problem caused me a lot >> > of >>>> > > > pain and trouble, and I was trying to be very sure this was likely to be >> > a >>>> > > > full and complete solution since I have a lot more short deadline >>>> work.. >> > I >>>> > > > need to be sure nothing like that will happen again, and the PP >>>> groups >> > are >>>> > > > filled with anomalies concerning PP and media files. >>>> > > > >>>> > > > I also wanted to be sure that other people would know about it in >> > case >>>> > > > anyone else might suffer the way I did. Tech support took many hours and >>>> > > > false suggestions to come up with this analysis. They put me through a >> > lot >>>> > > > of hoops while all the time mumbling this shouldnt be happening.. [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >>> > > happens >>>> > > > to confirm exactly what you were told? Too bad there's a bug, but given >>> > > that >>>> > > > you know what it is and it's awfully simple to accommodate it, what's [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >> > other >>>> > > > presentations - there. Then make an alias to it in the deeper folder and >>>> > > > satisfy your neatness urges that way. You can still find it (the >>>> alias) >>>> > > > where you'd expect. >>>> > > > [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > PPTools: www.pptools.com > ================================================ Panther 10.3.6 Office 2004 Windows XP Pro SP2 Office 2003 > This has been very frustrating and confusing. What I was really looking for > was validation to be sure I could stop worrying or a challenge so I would > know I needed to keep worrying and get to the real culprit. > > Now Im not worried. I think between this and our other comms we've narrowed it down to a path length problem - fingers crossed - but a little worry's always a health thing. <g> > Sure is a dumb thing for MS to allow and not to document, though. > > I would bet this would never happen on the Mac side.... What's that they say? Think Different? A whole 'nother set of quirks. (Yeah, I know: Spoken like a true Windows Geek. Guilty as charged.) Steve - One more thing to be clear about. The ppt malfunctioned from the very first moment. The files never played properly no matter what we did. It was not a matter of a good presentation failing to perform after being moved. Thanks! Best, - Bill Panther 10.3.6 Office 2004 Windows XP Pro SP2 Office 2003 |
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